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China’s Environmental Whitewash

Here’s what happens to green activists in the Middle Kingdom.

Nov. 18, 2014 7:22 p.m. ET

A week after President Obama and other world leaders enjoyed unusually blue skies over the APEC summit in Beijing, factories have restarted and smog has returned. So it’s a good time to consider an overlooked aspect of last week’s celebrated U.S.-China climate deal: Can an authoritarian government clean up its environment even as it persecutes citizens who sound the alarm over pollution?

Wu Lihong is a former factory worker from a village outside Shanghai along Lake Tai, China’s third-largest freshwater body. After...